Neo-fascism in America

[indigobusiness]

"Abraham Lincoln stated, 'I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me, and causes me to tremble for the safety of our country. Corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people, until wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the republic is destroyed.'”
---

Neo-fascism in America

Some weeks ago, The Herald newspaper, Glasgow, Scotland, published a letter in which I criticised the war in Iraq and suggested that the neo-cons in the US were a ruling neo-fascist elite. A trail of letters followed with one correspondent stating that I was making a serious error labeling them neo-fascist. He called them “tragically over-zealous apostles of liberal democracy.” Following the lively Herald debate, I was invited by The Surface to contribute this article.

My interest in America began on the day after my 16th birthday; November 22, 1963, when President John F. Kennedy was driven along Deeley Plaza to his death. Within days I watched Lee Harvey Oswald being led out to his execution before the assembled media, and I was completely hooked on American politics. Four decades, thousands of books, and a million conspiracy theories later, we still don’t know the truth about those astonishing events in Dallas. Like the all-too-many assassinations played out in front of the rolling cameras, American politics can be difficult to comprehend.

My own comprehension of American politics was helped enormously by a profound little essay, Escaping the Matrix, written by American, Richard K. Moore. <1> Moore, parallels the political situation in America with the Wachowski brothers’ film, The Matrix: “The defining dramatic moment in the film occurs just after Morpheus invites Neo to choose between a red pill and a blue pill. The red pill promises ‘the truth and nothing more.’ Neo takes the red pill and awakes to reality - something utterly different from anything Neo, or the audience, could have expected. What Neo had assumed to be reality turned out to be only a collective illusion, fabricated by the Matrix and fed to a population that is asleep, cocooned in grotesque embryonic pods. In the Matrix world, true reality and perceived reality exist on entirely different planes.”

In Moore’s Matrix metaphor, doses of ‘red pill’ allow us to comprehend the true reality of what is happening as opposed to an illusion deliberately created by the wealthy, ruling elite. As Morph tells Neo, “The Matrix is the world that was pulled down over your eyes to hide you from the truth… As long as the Matrix exists, humanity cannot be free.” Television and radio stations, news channels and most newspapers are owned by the ruling, wealthy elite who control the matrix. They dispense “blue pills” in the form of matrix propaganda, deliberately formulated to conceal the truth. While there are honourable journalistic exceptions, generally we have to look elsewhere for the ‘red pill’. Thankfully, it is becoming more readily available and less difficult to find. In this article I will quote from, and refer to, numerous ‘red pill’ articles and books.


http://www.surfaceonline.org/essayamerica6.htm?

[stellanoir]

1. great article

thanks for posting !

[indigobusiness]

2. My pleasure. The editior posted for the first time on DU today.

I thought his magazine deserved a bit of attention.

[indepat]

3. Sobering

[Eloriel]

4. My thanks as well

I thought BOTH essays were sufficiently important that I posted them here, hoping for a much wider audience:

The Way Things Really Are -- MUST READING esp. for new DUers
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1452106

[eg101]

6. but "neo" means "new". But this is not new! It's been here a long time!

I totally agree with the gist of the article you posted in that other thread, which you linked above. It is a marvelous article (the one about escaping the matrix). But that is what is so frustrating about DU and the demcratic party activists online. You basically agree with the author is saying in "escaping the matrix". But then you turn around and pretend like this is something new! "Escaping the Matrix" is all about showing how this is not new! And the Democratic Party is and always has been hip deep in this mess, every since there has been a Democratic party. And furthermore almost all of the democratic party politicians that are so idolized here on DU are hip deep in it, too, and always have been. Kerry, Edwards, Dean, Obama, Feinstein, all of them will not do a thing to upset the corporatist oligarchy or to expose the matrix. Ross Perot was the only politician I have ever seen that would speak honestly at all, even a bit.

So when are you guys going to admit that Bushco is just the Bad Cop and the Democratic party and the DLC and the DNC and the NDN are just the Good Cop in this economic mythology matrix we inhabit.

Isn't admitting the problem, facing the problem the first step in doing something about it?

OK, yeah, I know, you DUers are doing something about it, right? What I mean is doing something about the corporate influence on American politics? And specifically, how to eliminate or at least how to greatly reduce the influence of corporate politics on the Democratic party. Isn't that where you would start? Wouldn't you start by talking about how to reduce corporate influence on the Democratic party? I mean, every time I read something here on DU, some DUer is saying something about the bad influence of corporate power in politics.

Well, it is a known fact that the DLC and the NDN are the primary agents of corporate influence on the Democrat party. Right?

So if you DUers are so intent on reforming the party and reducing or eliminating corporate influence on the party, then where are the DU forums about reducing or corporate influence? If this is so important, then where are these forums?

Where is the "Stop the DLC" forum?

Where is the "Stop the NDN" forum?

Where is the "Eliminate Corporate Influence on the Democratic Party" forum?

And if corporate influence is so bad (and I certainly believe so) and if the dedicated Democratic party activists are so intent on doing something --at least something about corporate influence, then why aren't these forums are the very heart, at the very center of DU?

There are over 100 forums on DU. Over 100! Copied and pasted below is a list of them. I find nothing in there regarding forums dedicated to stopping or reducing corporate influence on the Democratic party, much less any forums about stopping or eliminating the DLC or the NDN on the party. Not one single forum dedicated to this vital issue! Not one!

What exactly is DU? That is my question.





List of DU forums:



Latest Breaking News

Editorials and Other Articles

General Discussion

General Discussion: Politics

The DU Lounge

Admin Picks

2004 Election Results and Discussion

Voting Issues

2004 Election Results and Discussion

Activism & Events

Campaign 2006 & 2008

Choice & Reproductive Freedom


.....

The rest of list has been deleted to save room (trust me, there is over 100, and not a one of them is devoted to stopping the DLC and the NDN.

Why?

[EmpireWeAre]

7. My take on the 2 Parties

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=2862517&mesg_id=2863725

[eg101]

8. regarding hitting them in the pocketbook

you recommend some sort of tax strike? I am not sure what you meant.

European countries do it with huge nationwide strikes every few years.

But that's how we used to do it here. A huge strike involving multiple unions or industries can really hit them in the pocketbook.

That is how blacks got a lot of their rights--by urban rioting and thereby threatening the property values of the merchants.

[EmpireWeAre]

10. You can call it that

and I would have no idea on how to organize it but if the millions who took to streets to protest the invasion denied the fascists in power $$$...

I thought it was a joke that people were protesting a government action while at the same time they were funding the very same action. :crazy:

Too many folks are afraid to back up rhetoric with concrete logical actions.

We all saw the effect that the protests had; zip, zilch, zero. The powers that be, laughed all the way to the bank.

[indigobusiness]

9. Nobody I know thinks it is essentially "new".

"Neo" is merely a reference to its new form and context.

[reprehensor]

11. You have a point.

So when you have enough posts, YOU can contact the mods and ask to start a stop the DLC forum. They might even let you, I don't know.

In the meantime, please continue to post at DU, and try to educate the members of this forum.

It's not a given that people are aware of articles like this, or like this.

So, you have to start with education.

I mean, to this day, most Americans are unaware of what PNAC is, and what a decisive role it has played in directing the Shrub Administration.

Therefore, it's no suprise to me that a majority of people posting here are blissfully unaware of the corporate whoring of (mainly) the DLC.

Keep posting, be logical, be clear, and maybe more will join your chorus.

Democrats are far more open to logic, facts, and a carefully posited argument than... them.

[EmpireWeAre]

5. Henry A. Wallace saw it coming 60 years ago...

“The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power.”

http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/082103F.shtml

[reprehensor]

12. Here's a bunch more links.

More links... (copy n paste the links, I'm gittin' sleepy.)

Fascism Part I: Understanding Fascism and anti-Semitism

Germany In 1933: The Easy Slide Into Fascism

Henry A. Wallace: The Danger of American Fascism

The Ghost of Vice President Wallace Warns: "It Can Happen Here"

It Can't Happen Here - ebook

The Promise of George W. Bush

Fascism and America Today

Lies, Fascism and the "Bonding" of Plutocrats

Rush, Newspeak and Fascism: An exegesis.

All the Theocracy You Can Handle.

The Iron Heel

[indigobusiness]

13. Irreprehensible...

Thanks.

Now I'll have to bookmark this link (though most of these swim through the catacombs of my 'Favorites').

[centerzu]

14. Thanks for post and links - Would like more reality-based

forums and discussions - especially about how to create powerful, innovative strategies for change. Strategies that reflect our capacities to do as Einstein suggested (with apologies...goes something like...) you can't solve a problem using the same level of thought that created it.

[reprehensor]

15. Or...

You can't beat the Republicans by being Republicans.

[indigobusiness]

16. That's a good way of putting it.

This goes to my repeated assertion that the nature of the dialog must change before positive change can be expected. The only hope of winning the game, at this point, lies in the hope of devising better ways to cheat...in other words--no chance. The playing field must be redrawn. Perhaps an insistence of meaningful discussion would be a start...and a refusal to acknowledge the absurd premises drawn by the blowhards rather than the folly of arguing?

[indigobusiness]

17. Yes...exactly.

That Einstein quote illustrates how casual our contemporary cognoscenti have become with the hard-won lessons of the ages.

No war can't be resolved fighting battles of the past.

[newyawker99]

18. Hi centerzu!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[sadiesworld]

19. kick

:thumbsup:

[trekbiker]

20. we have one chance...

that 1930's Germany did not have and that is the internet. It is basically unstoppable. Even the Chinese are having problems controlling it.

Air America Radio also.

Sadly, NPR "news" reporting has become a toothless joke. I suspect all the corporate underwriting and millionaire sindicated programs.